The ever increasing amount of air traffic has caused a marked increase in the workload of air traffic controllers in high traffic density areas around airports. The Next Generation (NextGen) overhaul of the United States airspace system and the companion Single European Sky ATM Research (SESAR) overhaul of the European airspace system are proposing various trajectory-based mechanisms to ease the pressures on the air traffic management on those continents. Some solutions being suggested include the increased use of onboard Required Time of Arrival (RTA) systems that allow an aircrew limited control of aircraft spacing and separation in areas where ATC personnel face heavy workloads.
A flight management system (FMS) is an onboard system that may include RTA capability. This RTA capability allows an aircraft to “self-deliver” to a specified waypoint or waypoints of a flight plan at a specified time along a four-dimensional trajectory (latitude, longitude, altitude, and time). The RTA system may be used within the context of a Controlled Time of Arrival (CTA) system to help manage the burden on an air traffic control (ATC) system resource.
These RTA systems may also be used to control speed transitions in multi-segment flight plans. Flight plans are developed in segments between “waypoints,” or points in space defined by latitude, longitude, an altitude. These segments have physical or regulatory maximum and minimum airspeed constraints. Further, one or more waypoints in the flight plan may have an RTA assigned to those waypoints, which may be a specific arrival time (i.e. an “At Time RTA”) or may be a one sided restriction such as arriving “no earlier than” or “no later than” a specific time.
Notwithstanding the numerous advantages of the NextGen and SESAR programs, a significant problem has arisen with respect to the capabilities of existing navigation systems that limit the ability of aircraft to reliably meet the air route (waypoint) time constraints imposed. For example, there are numerous onboard aircraft, ship-borne, and motor vehicle navigation systems that may calculate and display an Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA). However, there is no navigation system currently available that displays an indication to an operator that allows the operator to determine whether or not a required waypoint time constraint may be reliably satisfied.
Accordingly, it would be advantageous to have a system and method that may compute an aircraft's motion in four dimensions (e.g., three spatial dimensions and time) and reliably predict the aircraft's arrival time at a predetermined waypoint, by providing a graphical display to an operator of the aircraft's progress that enables the operator to adjust the aircraft's movement and achieve the desired arrival time. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the present disclosure will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description of the inventive subject matter and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background of the inventive subject matter.